Probably yes. Sea navigation. Mountaineers. Rescue missions. Not that I would much rather see manned mars missions in my lifetime than another desert liberated from its evil nomad dictators... but still!
What I've never understood is why the ISS wasn't designed in part as a construction platform. Wouldn't it make sense to build the vehicle needed for a Lunar or Martian mission in space and not worry so much about the weight needed to haul everything up in one go?
I mean, I'm not so hot at orbital mechanics, but I thought a really big chunk of the weight was in the rocket and fuel needed to boost the payload into orbit, then a much smaller amount of weight got spent on setting up the flight path to the destination orbit.
If I have the right of it, why spend time and money building the launch vehicles when we can use existing lifters to shove the stuff up and then push off from there. I mean, depending on the departure orbit, we're talking about a third of the velocity needed and most of the mass. You wouldn't even need to tug the return re-entry vehicle along for the ride.
Am I missing something that space experts know all about?
This is an interesting idea and I wouldn't mind seeing it, but it's also a year and a half old. There have been rebuttals published far and wide, including in the WaPo itself three days later:
Human missions to Mars will not be just a bit harder than a trip to the Moon and back, which takes a matter of days. They will be incredible multi-year journeys -- more like the voyages of Magellan than Apollo.
This seems like hyperbole to me. Getting to Mars takes less than a year.
There's no civilization on Mars, yet, getting to Mars isn't the end of the journey, it's just the start. The total journey to Mars, on Mars, and back to Earth will be multi-year.
I think mars is one of those places where if we ever want to get there we will have to come up with a first mission that doesn't pass current safety standards.
I think it's such a big undertaking that to plan for all circumstances wouldn't allow the mission to happen for a long time. Thing's like no rescue if something went wrong and only accounting for one launch window back to earth,
This is why you don't let news reporters write science policy, because they have no effing clue.
Developing the ability to send the ISS to Mars is significantly more difficult than building a purpose built spacecraft to send to Mars. The design of ISS is, to use programmer jargon, tightly coupled to its role in Earth orbit, sending it on a mission to Mars without significant modifications would cause its crew to suffer severe radiation exposure. Not to mention that we'd lose radio contact, the crew would run out of supplies and die, and the station would probably miss its target and fail to enter orbit around Mars (assuming it had the capability to do so, which it doesn't). Adding all those modifications would be more expensive than building a new vehicle that was actually designed for the journey.
Moreover, the most difficult aspect of all of this is propulsion. ISS is vastly heavier than other craft we would send to Mars, making it a more difficult task to move to Mars than any of the reference Mars missions on the table.
Wholly agreed. I'm certain the ISS will be of great use in a future manned Mars project (supposing we don't wait until the ISS goes the way of Mir), but repurposing it as a vehicle to Mars is, quite frankly, fucking moronic and as stupid as trying to break the land speed record in a modified backhoe. Simply put: That shit ain't happening.
The ISS would be best used as a permanent base for the crew constructing the manned vehicle to Mars. The ISS would also be capable of acting as a tether for the vehicle, enabling its own habitation modules to be created first. Then once the Mars vehicles habitation module is made, it can be the base for the construction effort.
Using the ISS as a habitation module for the construction effort will significantly speed up the process. Instead of taking years to assemble the structure, like with the ISS, the entire project could be assembled in months with a permanent crew in space. The ISS struggled with getting enough launches, a multinational manned Mars mission would enable launches to be made from at least 3 locations. NASA, ESA and Russia are all capable of launching large components into space, and a ISS based crew would be capable of the assembly process. The ISS will be capable of housing 6 astronauts at one time (I'm unsure if life support can handle 6 astronauts for months at a time, but that's easy to resolve if needed), which means projects could easily continue on the ISS while a Mars project is underway.
I believe everyone wants the manned Mars mission to last longer than the construction effort, or it's going to be a serious anti-climax. Also I hope NASA plans ahead and that the Mars craft is highly reusable and highly adaptable for later missions.
I almost said as stupid as trying to drag race a backhoe, I decided to change it when I realized it would probably be cool. I'm glad I changed it, and dragster backhoe is as cool as I thought.
If it were viable to properly shield the ISS from radiation and dust and small rocks, it could be a good idea to put it on an Aldrin Cycler orbit. Then all you would need to send to Mars every time a crew would have to go there would be the lander and supplies for the ISS to keep the crew alive and well for the 150 days or so of the transfer (and pack some supplies for the transfer back). That would significantly reduce the mass you have to send every trip. Having a capable platform on a permanent transfer orbit would also be great for science. Much better than LEO.
You would, of course, have to send repair and expansion parts, some extra propellant for trajectory corrections, replacements for damaged modules and build a whole lot more redundancy into the ISS than it has now - remember it would not be possible to use the Soyuz lifeboats on an emergency - not even when crossing Earth orbit as the ISS would be going too fast for the Soyuz to properly aerobrake.
It doesn't solve all the problems and is not what the journalist proposed, but it is close enough - the ISS would go to Mars and back (and to Mars and back and so on for as long as it could be repaired).
I didn't consider it to be a serious article, more "fantasy thinking" on an afternoon.
If the operational lifetime of the ISS could somehow be extended (just keeping all the seals, metals, circuits, and infrastructure _stable_ in the vacuum/radiation/harsh-conditions-of-space will be a challenge - forget about _accelerating_ the thing out of Earth Orbit) then I've always thought that at the very least, using the ISS as a possible escape location should problems pop up during Mars-Mission vehicle construction would be great. You then run into problems of trying to construct a device in the same relative orbit as the ISS, but _that_ is a solvable problem.
"forget about _accelerating_ the thing out of Earth Orbit"
We wouldn't be able to accelerate it in any way but a very gentle one. It's a heavy structure.
And as for keeping seals, metals and circuits.. That's why it's modular. You could, conceivably, replace parts of it indefinitely or, at least, for as long as you have the money and the resources.
If we are to repurpose the ISS in any meaningful way, we will need a heavy lifter.
